The company said that the new MCUs are suitable for compact, battery-driven systems such as polyphase electricity meters and handheld terminals, connected devices such as USB2.0 PC peripherals and healthcare equipment, and industrial ethernet systems.

This new lineup provides a platform approach for system designers, allowing them to choose configuration from a single family for their complete range of applications. By sharing the same architecture, the new MCUs enable migration of software and hardware for the system designers, contributing to fast time-to market for system designers at low cost, the company claimed.

Operating at 20MHz, the new V850ES/Jx3-L MCUs require 0.9 milliwatts per million instructions per second (mW/MIPS), offering approximately 60% reduction over the company’s existing MCUs that require 1.7mW/MIPS. The V850ES/Jx3-L MCUs offer up to 512KB of flash memory and optional on-chip USB 2.0 controllers, and they consume about 0.7µA during standby mode (when real-time counter is operating).

The company said that the new MCUs realize longer life for battery-driven systems. The new low power MCU lineup also offers RTC with independent power supply pins and increased number of serial interfaces.

In addition to the standard QFP (Quad Flat Package) packages, the 40 pin MCUs are equipped with 6mm × 6mm × 0.75mm QFN package and the 48-pin MCUs are equipped in 7mm × 7mm × 0.75mm QFN packages. By employing QFN packages, NEC Electronics said that it reduces the number of external pins by 50% and the package thickness by 46%, thereby achieving an 825smaller package size compared to its existing MCUs.

For even smaller and thinner applications, a lineup of BGA (Ball Grid Array) packages is available. The body sizes of these BGA packages range from 5mm × 5mm or 6mm × 6mm for packages with 64 pins to 8mm × 8mm for packages with 113 pins, which reduce space requirements and enable system designers to develop compact systems.

With the addition of the new chips, the V850ES/Jx3 series now includes 117 MCUs with flash memory ranging from 16KB to 1MB, packages from 40 to 144 pins and also includes USB2.0 Host & Function in the V850ES/Jx3-H and V850ES/Jx3-U series, and embedded ethernet MAC in the V850ES/Jx3-E series.

NEC Electronics’ whole V850 series covers the entire range in operating frequencies from 20MHz to 200MHz, with the new MCUs sharing the same architecture, and yet offering new functions and circuit optimizations. This makes it easier for the system designers to leverage their existing software resources as they add new products, thereby facilitating the overall development process at low-cost, the company said.

NEC Electronics added that its will further expand its lineup of power-efficient 32 bit MCUs.